Last minute halloween costume- Lucy from Peanuts or Madeline or Alice in Wonderland!

She's a role model, she's a legend, she's the original Lean In woman - Lucy Van Pelt.

And you have JUST enough time to make your Lucy dress, grab a foot ball and enjoy a night of trick or treating. 

This project is for someone who's willing to wing it a little and not be to concerned with a "perfect" dress. You're not on Project Runway, this is what ever is going to work for one night of cuteness. Don't worry, Michael Kors will not be turning your dress inside out to see how clean your seam work is.

What you need is a sewing machine and some basic (BELIEVE me basic) pattern reading skills.

I completed this dress in six hours with the skills I learned from a basic sewing class ten years ago.
I then put in another 6 hours when I decided I could do it better and ripped the original dress apart to sew again. BUT I'm crazy that way. You don't have to be.

I bought-
2 yards of Lucy blue cotton poplin
1 matching Lucy blue zipper
1 pack of matching Lucy blue bias tape
1 spool of Lucy blue thread
4 black buttons
12 inched of some type of black 1/2 inch trim ( ribbon, elastic, ric rac, I used black bias tape)

All together this cost me around 15 dollars.

I searched the internet and found this great pattern by Sew Be It Studio. I was looking for something drop waisted to replicate Lucy's little girl dress. I downloaded the appropriate sized pattern and taped it together, one 8.5" x 11" letter sized paper at a time. All 21 pages. Don't complain. It's free! It's going to look something like this.

You're going to ditch parts of the pattern. So you really only need to cut out the pieces for the bodice front, bodice back and the back panel of the skirt.

Lay out the pieces on your ironed fabric. If you really want to be ambitious, pre wash and dry it to make the costume washable. Cut out the various pieced. Use the instructions provided on the Sew Be It Studio pattern link to assemble to bodice.

Since the original pattern has a different skirt front, I just used the panel from the back, printed the piece twice and taped them together at the center seam to create 1 whole pattern piece for the front of the skirt. After I sewed together the bodice, I sewed the front and back panels of the skirt together and hemmed the bottom of the skirt. I then matched the side seams of the the skirt to the side seams of the bodice, pining it. You can then pin pleats/gathers in which ever area you please. I tried to make them kind of symmetrical. Sew the skirt to the bodice and sew up the back seam of the skirt.

During this time, it helps to press out the seams in the underside of the dress as you sew them.  It creates a flatter, cleaner look. Did I do that? Uhm, kind of. But I got impatient and just kept sewing. It looked fine. Most people now wear cheap store bought costumes. YOU are not wearing something that looks flammable. The dress will look great, pressed seams or unpressed seams.

You will notice that the pattern does not have puffed sleeves. Remember when I said you have to wing it a little? This is that part. I totally fudged using this tutorial here from the blog Skirt as Top. I drafted the pattern using a short sleeve length. As someone who has never drafted a sleeve is her life, I found it very clear and easy to follow.

If you would like more of a puffed shape, like I did, I then altered the shape of the pattern piece using this tutorial on the blog Ikatbag. Go to the part of the page labeled Puff-Top Sleeve. Really, the internet is an amazing place. THREE free patterns and tutorials? I love it. From the tutorial on Skirt as Top you should be able to figure out how to attach the sleeves, or as I did fudge it so it looked good enough.

The last finishing touch is to sew on two strips of black trim to the front of the dress with black buttons on either side. Use Lucy herself as reference where to place the trim and button.

I found the ruffled neckline a little unflattering so I omitted it. Remember, Halloween is about getting the look of the costume not being 100% accurate...unless you are one of those crazy cos play people. If that's the case then you better get on sourcing vintage fabric from the 50s and maybe you'll have this costume ready by next years Halloween.

What I really love about this dress is that it really is three costumes in one! With a slight alteration to this dress, next year you could be Madeline!

And the year after that Alice in Wonderland!

 But for this costume I added a finishing touch with a very Lucy sign.

What? You can find a therapist for 5 cents these days?

Happy halloween!